The Amnesty law will be approved next Thursday in the plenary session of Congress, following the agreement reached by the PSOE, Esquerra and Junts last Wednesday. This rule is the passport and visa that the socialists need for the legislature to advance and the independence groups to agree to address other capital issues such as the general budgets of the State and the legislative package of the Government of Pedro Sánchez. It is also a safe passage to change the scene and that the Koldo case is not the backdrop in all the acts of the function. But consensus was not an easy path, it came after a frustrated first attempt and a complex negotiation with three parties as protagonists and rivals. A fourth, which opposes it, the Popular Party, also collaborated. Of course, without intending it.
When Junts voted against the Amnesty law in Congress on January 30, considering that it did not offer sufficient guarantees, it was walking on a wire, but it could not fall into the void. He knew that he had the canvas under him: return to the Justice commission and continue negotiating for another fifteen days or a month. The decision provoked anger in the rest of the groups that support criminal oblivion. There was also incomprehension in some of his paintings. But after that first phase of anger, socialists and post-convergents discreetly resumed contacts to redirect the situation. With the Galician elections on the horizon, there was hardly any noise. Only a meeting in Barcelona was revealed in which they certified their distance.
Last week a different scenario began to emerge. In unison, both the Minister of the Presidency and Justice, Félix Bolaños, in Madrid, and the former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont, in Strasbourg, issued similar signals, positive messages. They trusted the approval of the standard. There was barely a week left to unblock the situation. Contacts had already been resumed and the negotiation had been redirected. In the midst of the storm of the Koldo case, there was an exchange of documents. In that phase, ERC received the proposals. On Wednesday, the PSOE informs ERC that it continues in its thirteenth: the law is not going to be modified. On Thursday he changes his mind. The conversations revolved around the start date of the amnesty – in the end, November 2011, due to the Court of Accounts cases – and the most important modifications: the exclusion for the crimes of terrorism and treason.
On Friday, March 1, there was a turning point. The draft of the report that the Venice Commission – a consultative body of the Council of Europe – will present in mid-March reached all parliamentary groups in the Congress and the Senate. It was the element that finally triggered the agreement, although paradoxically the report was produced at the request of the PP with a desire to oppose it. So much so, that the next day Puigdemont, at an event in the south of France, took the amnesty for granted. Minister Bolaños canceled his planned attendance that Saturday at the Congress of European Socialists held in Rome. It was time to move forward definitively, and the phones began to smoke.
In this preliminary report, after the visit of the members of the Venice Commission to Spain in February, everyone saw a point of support for their position and aspirations. “He made our lives a lot easier, his recommendations opened up alternatives for us,” they acknowledge. The PSOE saw a way to justify the amendments to a text that it defended as impeccable weeks before. Junts, in turn, points out that it endorsed its contrary vote on January 30 and that it was a “landing pad” for the PSOE, which was reluctant to change the wording, especially regarding terrorism. As an alternative, along the way, they put on the table in the previous weeks modifying the Penal Code or the Criminal Procedure law. Both ERC and JxCat reject it. It's not the moment. But yes, for sure, in the future. In that document, they also came across a recommendation regarding the embezzlement of public funds that could later have caused some headaches for the promoters of the law, since if the law had been approved on January 30, there would have been no room for its modification.
On Saturday, March 2, everything seemed closed and indicated that there would be an agreement on Thursday. No extension of the deadlines was requested in the Justice commission. But in ERC there were still reservations regarding the modifications that cross PSOE and JxCat. Republicans do not fall under the treason exclusion, but they do not like the changes.
The discrepancies were resolved between the general secretaries of Junts and ERC, Jordi Turull and Marta Rovira, on Sunday with an exchange of messages and on Monday with a call. Both, despite the political squabbles, maintain a good personal relationship from the time of the 9-N consultation and the Junts pel Sí stage. The PSOE welcomed the fact that the independentists agreed on the amendments in advance. Everything was done at a technical level, with the lawyer Gonzalo Boye and the congressional deputy Josep Pagès on the post-convergent side, and with the republican Marta Vilaret. There were other people who collaborated at a legal level who preferred to remain anonymous.
In this part of the story the versions differ, in a context of battle for the story and struggle between ERC and Junts to capitalize on the benefits of the amnesty in the upcoming electoral events. JxCat assures that the initiative to negotiate beforehand with his former partner is his and that Santos Cerdán, organization secretary in Ferraz and a regular interlocutor for Puigdemont's team, approved it. In turn, from ERC, they point out that it was the PSOE who urged Junts to sit down with the Republicans after receiving several of their proposals.
To address technical aspects, there were videoconferences between the representatives of the three formations. The political negotiations, on the other hand, were always in parallel and there was never a tripartite table or any joint videoconference between the PSOE, Junts and ERC. Bolaños and Cerdán communicated with Turull – who after his heart failure tried to connect to a meeting from the hospital, but his people would not let him – and with Miriam Nogueras, on the one hand, and on the other with the Republican Josep Maria Jové. In the PSOE they highlight that there was “a lot of exchange of roles” between the three parties. “There have been hundreds of versions of the law,” they point out. From then on, ERC perceives a Junts “much more receptive than before.” “They accept almost all of our modifications,” they say.
On Wednesday at noon, there was a technical agreement closed with the final details to introduce changes in the law, when there were less than 24 hours left for the Justice commission appointment. The text agreed between ERC and Junts was sent at 2 p.m. to the PSOE negotiators, who returned it at 5 p.m. with some minor additions. And at 6 p.m. the three parties concluded the negotiation with an agreement. They agreed to release a joint statement at 8 p.m., very brief, only to inform about the agreement, not its content. The one issued by the PSOE and ERC had the three logos on the header. JxCat chose to put only his own. The content was revealed on Thursday morning, at the start of the meeting in Congress. It was previously shared with the rest of the groups that support the law, and Sumar, the PNV and Bildu added their signature to the amendments.
Beyond the common message, the confrontation of stories began. Each party offered its own. The PSOE concluded the process, Junts showed their chest for standing on January 30 and achieving “improvements”, and ERC highlighted that the text was practically the same, with mere “aesthetic” changes. Behind us are hours of discreet negotiations and with some other security measures in the connections, such as calls through Signal. Even so, something happens: in this last week, Vilaret sees how while he writes in Word, his computer automatically takes screenshots, up to seven or eight times, without the Republican's permission and without asking for it.
